Former Senator Gary Hart’s The Republic of Conscience is a meditation on the growing gap between the founding principles of the United States Constitution and our current political landscape. Gary Hart is an American politician and a former Colorado senator, serving in Congress from 1975 to 1987. Since retiring from the Senate, Hart resumed his private law practice and has written several books on U.S. history and politics.In 2014, President Barack Obama named Hart as the new United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland.

Going back as early as 400 BC, the idea of a true republic has been threatened by narrow, special interests taking precedence over the commonwealth. The United States Constitution was drafted to protect against such corruption, but as Gary Hart details in The Republic of Conscience, America is nowhere near the republic it set out to be almost 250 years ago, falling to the very misconduct it hoped to avoid. In his latest book, the former Colorado Senator and presidential contender describes ‘the increasing gap between purpose and performance’ in America, emphasizing how the sense of national interest has become distorted and diluted over time. Focusing on the years after World War II, Hart tackles major American institutions—the military, the CIA, Congress—and outlines how these establishments have led the country away from its founding principles, not closer to them. Full of original and incisive analysis, The Republic of Conscience is Hart’s examination and remedy for the millions of Americans who feel jaded, confused, and disappointed by their current government. A testament to Hart’s political faith in the founding fathers, this book is one citizen’s attempt to recapture the Republic, and a timely reminder for the next July 4th holiday.

Cindy Williams looks back at “American Graffiti” when she joins us for a very special evening at the Aero Theater next Friday the 24th.

Cindy will partake in a Q & A w/ friend of the Cinematheque Larry Karaszewski as well as signing copies of her brand new book, ” Shirley, I Jest” in the lobby beforehand at 6:30 pm.

An American classic w/ one of the stars of the film that brought the 50’s back in the 70’s.

Join us for this special evening or give us a call if you’d like a signed copy sent your way.

It’s the next best thing to pulling your hot rod up to Mel’s and placing your order!

Cindy Williams, half of the comedic duo of Laverne & Shirley, has had a wild and lively career in show business. This book is an engaging and heartfelt journey from Williams’s blue collar roots to unexpected stardom—from being pranked by Jim Morrison while waiting tables at Whisky a Go Go to starring in one of the most iconic shows on television. With wit and candor, Cindy tells stories of her struggles as a child growing up with meager means and dreaming of becoming an actress. She also shares many misadventures and amusing anecdotes about some of the most famous actors in Hollywood. Never taking herself too seriously, Cindy finds humor and irony in the challenging world of show business.

Patricia Marx is a writer for The New Yorker, former writer for Saturday Night Live, and the first woman elected to the Harvard Lampoon. Her books include the novel Him Her Him Again The End of Him, the children’s book Now Everybody Really Hates Me, and the humor book How To Regain Your Virginity. Marx employs the weapon she wields best–not that weapon; Patty believes in gun control. Instead, she uses her sharp-edged humor to tackle the most difficult facet of aging: the mind’s decline. From forgetting her brother-in-law’s name while he was wearing a nametag to hanging up the phone to look for her phone, Marx confesses to her failures, and not only to make you feel better about yourself.

In LET’S BE LESS STUPID Patty addresses troubling conundrums, such as: If there are more neural connections in your brain than stars in the Milky Way, why did you put the butter dish in your nightstand drawer? Patty’s quest to get smarter includes just about everything: learning Cherokee, popping pills (not the good kind), and listening to–who’s the guy who didn’t write dum de de dum but the other one?

Tim Long is an Emmy Award-winning writer and producer for The Simpsons. He is also a former Head Writer for Late Show With David Letterman. In addition to his work for television, Long has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Vanity Fair.

Hard to believe that it is already the 20th anniversary of the film “Clueless”. the LARE once again is teaming up with our friends from Street Food Cinema for a night of celebration with a screening of the film, live music & a book signing with author Jen Chaney who will have her new book , “AS IF! the Oral History of Clueless”. Oh yeah, and there will be lots of great food to choose from too!

Will we ever get tired of watching Cher navigate Beverly Hills high school and discover true love in the movie Clueless? As if! Written by Amy Heckerling and starring Alicia Silverstone, Clueless is an enduring comedy classic that remains one of the most streamed movies on Netflix, Amazon, and iTunes even twenty years after its release. Inspired by Jane Austen’s Emma, Clueless is an everlasting pop culture staple.

In the first book of its kind, Jen Chaney has compiled an oral history of the making of this iconic film using recollections and insights collected from key cast and crew members involved in the making of this endlessly quotable, ahead-of-its-time production. Get a behind-the-scenes look at how Emma influenced Heckerling to write the script, how the stars were cast into each of their roles, what was involved in creating the costumes, sets, and soundtrack, and much more. This wonderful twentieth anniversary commemoration includes never-before-seen photos, original call sheets, casting notes, and production diary extracts. With supplemental critical insights by the author and other notable movie experts about why Clueless continues to impact pop culture, As If! will leave fans new and old totally buggin’ as they understand why this beloved film is timeless.

Jen Chaney has been a journalist for twenty years and has spent much of that time writing about movies, television, and popular culture. She currently writes reviews, feature stories, essays, and TV analyses for numerous publications, including New York magazine, The Washington Post, Esquire, Salon, and Yahoo.com. Chaney is a graduate of the College of William & Mary, and lives with her husband, son, and beagle just outside of Washington, DC.

Adam Carolla is the author of the New York Times bestsellers In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks, Not Taco Bell Material, and President Me, as well as a radio and television host, comedian, and actor. Carolla is well known as the cohost of the syndicated radio and MTV show Loveline, the cocreator and star of The Man Show and Crank Yankers, and a contestant on Dancing with the Stars and Celebrity Apprentice. He currently hosts Catch a Contractor and The Adam Carolla Show, which is the Guinness World Record holder for Most Downloaded Podcast and is available on iTunes and his website.

In his new book, Adam Carolla lays down the law on the plight of the modern parent. Parents, do you often think that if your kids had to grow up the way you did—without iPads, 70-inch flatscreen TVs, American Girl dolls, and wifi in the climate controlled minivan—that they might actually be better off? Do you feel underappreciated or ignored? Do you worry you’re raising a bunch of spoiled softies who will never know how to do anything themselves—because you do everything for them? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need this book is for you. Adam rips parenthood a new one, telling it straight about what adults must do if they don’t want to have to support their kids forever. Using his own crappy childhood as a cautionary tale, and touting the pitfalls of the kind of helicopter parenting so pervasive today. The book is sage advice to Adam’s own kids—and to future parents—on what matters most: dating; drinking and drugs; buying your first house and car; puberty; and what kind of assholes his kids (and yours) should avoid becoming. Even if his own son and daughter pretty much ignore everything he says, you shouldn’t.

Candace Bushnell is the bestselling writer whose first book, Sex and the City, was the basis for HBO’s hit series and subsequent blockbuster movies. Other novels, including Lipstick Jungle and The Carrie Diaries, have become hit television series. Killing Monica is a novel about an actress who plays the part of a popular character created from a series of books – and becomes obsessed with living out every part of the story in her real life, turning the world of the series’ writer upside down. In Killing Monica, Bushnell spoofs and skewers her way through pop culture, celebrity worship, fame, and even the meaning of life itself, when a famous writer must resort to faking her own death in order to get her life back from her most infamous creation – Monica.

Brad Meltzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Inner Circle, The Book of Fate, and seven other bestselling thrillers including The Tenth Justice, Dead Even, The First Counsel, The Millionaires, The Zero Game, The Book of Lies, and The Fifth Assassin. His newest novel is The President’s Shadow. In addition to his fiction, Brad is one of the only authors to ever have books on the bestseller list for Non-Fiction (History Decoded), Advice (Heroes for My Son and Heroes for My Daughter), Children’s Books (I Am Amelia Earhart, I Am Abraham Lincoln, I Am Albert Einstein and I Am Rosa Parks) and even comic books (Justice League of America), for which he won the prestigious Eisner Award. He is also the host of Brad Meltzer’s Lost History on H2 and Brad Meltzer’s Decoded on the History Channel. The Hollywood Reporter recently put him on their list of Hollywood’s 25 Most Powerful Authors. His other non-fiction books, Heroes for My Son and Heroes for My Daughter, are collections of heroes – from Jim Henson to Sally Ride — that he’s been working on since the day his kids were born. His most recent work of nonfiction is History Decoded: The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time. He’s also one of the co-creators of the TV show, Jack & Bobby. Brian K. Vaughan is the award-winning writer of comics like Saga, Y: The Last Man and The Private Eye, a digital, pay-what-you-want series available at his site PanelSyndicate.com. His upcoming works for Image Comics include the futuristic military thriller We Stand on Guard with artist Steve Skroce and the young adult mystery Paper Girls with Cliff Chiang. He sometimes dabbles in television, including stints on the hit series Lost and Stephen King’s Under the Dome.

Colin Quinn recently wrapped up the national tour of his off-broadway hit Colin Quinn Unconstitutional, the follow up to his Tony and Emmy nominated one man show, Colin Quinn Long Story Short, directed by Jerry Seinfeld. Best known for his run on SNL hosting Weekend Update and star of Comedy Central’s Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, he is currently has a recurring role on HBO’s Girls, and will be seen later this year in Judd Apatow’s Trainwreck, opposite Amy Schumer.

Colin Quinn has noticed a trend during his decades on the road-that Americans’ increasing political correctness and sensitivity have forced us to tiptoe around the subjects of race and ethnicity altogether. Colin wants to know: What are we all so afraid of? Every ethnic group has differences, everyone brings something different to the table, and this diversity should be celebrated, not denied. So why has acknowledging these cultural differences become so taboo?

In The Coloring Book, Quinn, a native New Yorker, tackles this issue head-on while taking us on a trip through the insane melting pot of 1970s Brooklyn, the many, many dive bars of 1980s Manhattan, the comedy scene of the 1990s, and post-9/11 America. He mixes his incredibly candid and hilarious personal experiences with no-holds-barred observations to definitively decide, at least in his own mind, which stereotypes are funny, which stereotypes are based on truths, which have become totally distorted over time, and which are actually offensive to each group, and why. As it pokes holes in the tapestry of fear that has overtaken discussions about race, The Coloring Book serves as an antidote to our paralysis when it comes to laughing at ourselves . . . and others.

Peter C. Whybrow, MD, is director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles. Born and educated in England, he is the author of, among other books, A Mood Apart and the award-winning American Mania: When More Is Not Enough. For more information visit his website. “In The Well-Tuned Brain Peter Whybrow combines gripping big themes with an abundance of fascinating stories. The big themes revolve around the collision between our ancient human habits, our human brains often operating on autopilot, and the seductive material success of our modern market economy. You’ll find this book as rich and as thought-provoking as it is enjoyable.” —Jared Diamond, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel.

In The Well-Tuned Brain: Neuroscience and the Life Well Lived, eminent neuropsychiatrist Peter Whybrow weaves cutting-edge science, philosophy, history and personal experience to explore how the human brain is at odds with the enticements of the consumer society. It is the challenge central to our times. But with self-knowledge comes opportunity, as Whybrow explains in this optimistic and inspiring book. Fundamental to crafting a sustainable future is accepting the mismatch between who we are and the vibrant culture that we have created. First, is to recognize that the human brain is of hybrid construction. Self-interest and the drive to overconsumption are relics of our evolution, from a time when competition for scarce resources was essential to survival. Secondly, we are creatures of habit. These are the brain’s autopilots that allow the brain to run efficiently and with speed?intuitively and without conscious attention. But when habits are shaped primarily by the temptations and novelties of consumerism self-control is eroded. In explaining how this mismatch has emerged, Whybrow digs deep into the birth of the modern market society, how the market’s self-regulation is rooted in the dynamics of normal human behavior?melding self-interest and social awareness?and how that behavioral balance has been distorted by the rapid cultural and technological change that we now experience. So, in the second half of the book, Whybrow asks “How to live” in this Age of Man? How may we “re-tune” ourselves to live in harmony with our achievements? Whybrow demonstrates how knowledge of behavioral neuroscience can help craft those habits essential to physical well-being, and to environmental preservation. What emerges is a call to rediscover the strengths and virtues of our extraordinary capacity as social animals. To find our way forward is a collective enterprise, and in a progressive series of chapters Whybrow uses behavioral neuroscience to help illuminate the path. What do we know about the chemistry of love? Why is early nurturing essential to priming a well-tuned brain and to the development of trust? How does self-command emerge from the security of these early relationships to make possible the stable union that is mentored education? Through a series of compelling stories, told with passion and insight by those intimately engaged, Whybrow brings alive how character is shaped in youth and how such balanced, empathic understanding of the social world is the bedrock of a life well lived and the key to life-long learning. As Whybrow observes, “…beyond the acquisition of facts, education serves a moral purpose—the development of individual character and the capacity for self-directed growth.” Cross-cutting this path to self-understanding is the magic of the imagination, which in a later chapter Whybrow explores in detail. Together with its kissing cousin, creativity, imagination is a uniquely human attribute that has blossomed comparatively recently in our evolution making possible the emergence of the technologies and the vibrant communities that we now take for granted. But it is also through imagination that we harness the experience of the past to create a worthy future for our children. With careful attention we can do so with wisdom. In his scholarship Whybrow casts a broad net: with insights from the Bronze Age, from Renaissance Italy, the Scottish Enlightenment, the writings of Adam Smith, and the Founding Fathers, the details of modern neuroscience are illuminated by crisp, clear writing and insights from personal experience.

The Well-Tuned Brain: Neuroscience and the Life Well Lived, is a riveting work that will prompt readers to reexamine life and embrace the possibility of a new way forward. “Tuning the brain demands knowledge, attention, and hard work,” reflects Whybrow. “However, there’s no investment more worthwhile: striving to be in tune with one’s self simultaneously makes both common sense and serves the common good.”

David Milch is an Emmy-Award-winning writer and producer responsible for some of the most celebrated television dramas of the last three decades. Milch, who won the Tinker Prize for highest achievement in English at Yale University and earned an M.F.A.from the Writers’ Workshop at The University of Iowa, left a teaching career at Yale to write for Hill Street Blues. He subsequently served as Executive Story Editor and then Executive Producer for Hill Street Blues. In 1992, Milch co-created the history-making police drama NYPD Blue. Milch took home Emmys for Best Writing in a Drama for the 1996-1997 and 1997-1998 seasons. Milch created another police drama, Brooklyn South, and co-authored, along with NYPD Blue producer Bill Clark, True Blue: The Real Stories Behind NYPD Blue, and served as creative consultant for Steven Bochco’s Murder One and Total Security. Milch also created and was the Executive Producers of Deadwood and Luck for HBO.